288 QUEEN BEARING. 



of the reacli of robbers, until the search is over, when every- 

 thing may be returned to its proper place. 



544. After a queen is taken from a cage, the bees will 

 run in and out of it for a long time, thus proving that tliey 

 recognize her peculiar scent. It is this odor which causes 

 them to run inquiringly over our hands, after we have caught 

 a queen, and over any spot where she alighted when her 

 swarm came forth. 



This scent of the queen was probably known in Aristotle's 

 time, who says: "When the bees swarm, if the king (queen) 

 is lost, we are -told that they all search for him, and follow 

 him with their sagacious smell, until they find him." Wild- 

 man says: "The scent of her body is so attractive to them, 

 that the slightest touch of her, along any place, or substance, 

 will attract the bees to it, and induce them to pursue any 

 path she takes." 



The intelligent bee-keeper has now realized, not only how 

 queens may be raised or replaced, by the use of the movable- 

 frame hive, but how any operation, which in other hives is 

 performed with difficulty, if at all, is in this rendered easy 

 and certain. No hive, however, can make the ignorant or 

 negligent very successful, even if they live in a region where 

 the climate is so propitious, and the honey resources so abun- 

 dant, that the bees will prosper in spite of mismanagement or 

 neglect. 



